Advice to photographers in Uk (was "My fellow criminals...")

[Leica DeOcean]

Stuart

You are absolutely right.

And THANKS for the reminder of the Brazilian joke. I nearly "split my sides" laughing when I first heard it. I nearly did again.

Have a great day.

Attila

[hlockwood]

Originally Posted by Leica DeOcean

...
Who was it that said, "The only thing we have to fear ......... is FEAR itself?" Shmaart feller, nicht ? Was it a past American President or was it Al Gore during the Florida "hanging chads" controversy ? Or was it George Bush who said that while justifying to the United Nations reasons for going to war in Iraq? I really can't remember anymore.
...

FDR

[andybarton]

Gentlemen

This is no laughing matter. This is deadly, deadly serious and is happening now, today, in my country. This is not a third world country. This isn't Zimbabwe. Or 1980s Russia. Or Belarussia. Or Chile form the 70s. Or South Africa during apartheid. This is the UK, 2008.

UK police order amateur photographer to ‘delete’ pictures at tourist hotspot

If you are arrested, for any offence here, now, they swab you for DNA. And keep you on the database. For ever. Regardless of whether you are innocent, or guilty. Regardless of the offence.

So, get yourself arrested for photographing a lamp-post in London, and your DNA is on Government files. For ever.

[bill]

Originally Posted by andybarton

Gentlemen

This is no laughing matter. This is deadly, deadly serious and is happening now, today, in my country. This is not a third world country. This isn't Zimbabwe. Or 1980s Russia. Or Belarussia. Or Chile form the 70s. Or South Africa during apartheid. This is the UK, 2008.

UK police order amateur photographer to ‘delete’ pictures at tourist hotspot

If you are arrested, for any offence here, now, they swab you for DNA. And keep you on the database. For ever. Regardless of whether you are innocent, or guilty. Regardless of the offence.

So, get yourself arrested for photographing a lamp-post in London, and your DNA is on Government files. For ever.

Note that it was a PCSO...

I have been seeking something to illustrate to those who are not in the UK just how paranoid and sensationalist our society is becoming. I can do no better than this:

PC overkill for school's internet newsletter - Telegraph

The police adverts are plugging into - and perpetuating - the same type of paranoia.

Regards,

Bill

[andybarton]

Get arrested, Bill, and they take, and keep, your DNA. Even if you're innocent.

The Plastic Police take you to the real ones if they think you might have done something wrong.

[bill]

Originally Posted by andybarton

Get arrested, Bill, and they take, and keep, your DNA. Even if you're innocent.

The Plastic Police take you to the real ones if they think you might have done something wrong.

I know. My point is that the hobby bobbies are well-meaning but severely lacking in training. They do what they *think* is right. They have no power to arrest, btw, but only to detain, for a short period while they call a real officer to assist. If the officer does not arrive within 30 minutes you can walk away, thus:

The powers of PCSOs are set out in Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the PRA.
PCSOs must be on duty and wearing the correct uniform to exercise their powers. With the exception of the power of directing traffic to escort abnormal loads, PCSO powers can only be exercised in the force area of the designating Chief Officer.

2. Issue Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) for offences of disorder
3. Detain for up to 30 minutes suspects who fail to give details
4. Use reasonable force to detain as at 2
5. Impose requirements and dispose of alcohol consumed in designated public places
6. Enter any premises to save life and limb or prevent serious damage to property
7. Carry out PACE road checks and stop vehicles to do so
8. Stop and search vehicles & belongings in areas authorised under the Terrorism Act 2000.
9. Seize vehicles used to cause alarm etc.
10. Issue Fixed Penalty Notices for offences of cycling on footways, dog fouling, litter
11. Require name and address from suspects
12. Require name and address from person acting in anti-social manner
13. Confiscate and dispose of alcohol from young persons
14. Seize and dispose of tobacco from young persons
15. Authorise removal of abandoned vehicles
16. Stop vehicles for testing
17. Make traffic directions for abnormal vehicles.

I think the best approach, if stopped by a PCSO, is to be polite and co-operative. However, any attempt to criminalise your activities (demand to delete photos, etc) should be met with a firm refusal to co-operate further until a real officer is summoned.

Regards,

Bill

[stunsworth]

Sure Andy, but in the case described in the AP article the proper PC would just roll his/her eyes and let you fo without arrest.

Personally in a perverse way I'd like one of these part time PC plods to stop me. I think by now we all have a good idea of where we can photograph and where we can be stopped, and I'd love to ask them to call a 'real' copper.

[Andrew Spackman]

Thanks to Bill for raising this and to Andy for pursuing it with the Met. I have emailed them too:

"I have seen your advertisement asking members of the public to report people taking photographs if they think it looks suspicious. As president of a camera club founded in 1946 I would be grateful for any advice I can pass on to our 63 members as to what they should avoid doing when pursuing their perfectly legal hobby in public."

Members of our club were reported to the local police during an evening visit to a local village. Two days later (!) the police responded by contacting an ex-chairman and advising him that the club should report its movements to the police in advance. And that was the response I got when I phoned them. The Chief Constable finally climbed down (via a phone call from a sergeant) when our chairman invited him to our annual exhibition, an invitation he did not take up.

Andrew

[stunsworth]

Originally Posted by Andrew Spackman

..the police responded by contacting an ex-chairman and advising him that the club should report its movements to the police in advance.

Good grief, just when you think it couldn't get any worse.

And the difference between having to inform the police of your movements in advance, and a police state is?

[andybarton]

My response to the senior officer in the Met.

--------

Mr Lawrence

I feel so strongly about this that I am prepared to use my own email address, and not my gmail address to further this. I have also copied this to my MP and Amateur Photographer. I will also copy this email conversation to Liberty.

Thank you very much indeed for your prompt response to my concern.

I have to say that I take no comfort whatsoever in the fact that a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police quotes stop and search powers under s44 of the Terrorism Act, to allay the legitimate fears of the individual, concerned that they may be arrested (and have their DNA permanently recorded on police databases), simply for taking photographs on the streets of London. I would be very grateful if you could advise me of the law that has been passed banning the taking of photographs on London streets, as that one appears to have passed me by.

You say that it is better to be safe than sorry. If this is the case, I hope that you will be arresting everyone in London who carries a mobile phone with a camera facility, and everyone in London who is taking photographs for simple tourist purposes. Who knows what their real motives may be? You will be extremely busy at Buckingham Palace and in Trafalgar Square, no doubt, and I look forward to seeing this security clamp-down on the BBC News in the coming weeks.

You mention "transport networks" in your response to me yesterday. Nowhere on the poster to which I gave a link is there anything to do with "transport". The message on the poster is clear. Anyone seen taking photographs in the street is likely to be a terrorist. It's plain and simple. And wrong. Look at the pdf of the poster http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/c...amera_2008.pdf. It's incredible.

Please, don't get me wrong. I fully support the police and security authorities in their fight against the international terrorist threat. I was in Hyde Park when the IRA blew up the guardsmen and their horses. I worked in London during the 80s. I know what it's like to be threatened by a bomb.

Unfortunately, posters such as this one only create a sense of paranoia amongst the general population, that has nothing to do with terrorism, but everything to do with creating a frightened population.

Everyone who travels on the tube is aware of what happened on 7th July 2005. Everyone. People are suspicious, and do watch their fellow travellers much more closely than they might have done before these tragic events. But, to suggest that everyone with a camera, taking photographs in the street, needs to be reported to the police on suspicion of being a terrorist must be making the real terrorists very happy indeed.

If this is the way that life in Britain is to be in the future, the terrorists have already won.

I look forward to hearing from you

Respectfully

Andy Barton

[stunsworth]

Well that's you on their 'watch' list Andy. No doubt about that <grin>

[Andrew Spackman]

Originally Posted by stunsworth

Good grief, just when you think it couldn't get any worse.

And the difference between having to inform the police of your movements in advance, and a police state is?

Exactly so. I pointed out that if they wanted to know where the camera club was meeting they could find it on our website in five seconds. But did they expect me to ring them up if a few members decided to go out together to take photos? And what about our village group of ramblers who would be carrying cameras and rucksacks in the Coventry area the following Tuesday? And (like Andy Barton) I worked in London during the IRA campaign etc. And so on. I thought I was going to be done for wasting police time.

That's a brilliant reply Andy has sent to the Met!

Andrew

[andybarton]

Steve

Frankly, I don't care. I used your email address.

Actually, I don't care. I do care about what they have done to us, but I don't care about a Met police officer knowing that I'm not happy about it.

Eventually, my MP will send me some crap letter about the terrorist threat and how it is in everyone's interests to shop their neighbour to the authorities, for the good of the country. He's done it several times before.

Come the revolution, I'll be first against the wall, no doubt.

[Andrew Spackman]

Well, I have had a reply to my email. Amazing!

Andrew

Dear Sir/Madam

I believe your best course of action would be to attend your local
police station and make your enquiry in person.

I am not aware of any set rules re what you are asking, other than of
course to use common sense and do not photograph in/near/around sensitive
premises. However, I do understand that it is not always possible to
recognize a 'sensitive premises' unless you are in the know.

It may be that carrying a membership card recording that a person is a
member of your long standing Photography Club will suffice.

As stated, attend your local police station for first hand advice.

Regards

Email Office - CCC Lambeth

[andybarton]

Who's up for a photography stroll around SW1 later in the summer?

[stunsworth]

Originally Posted by andybarton

Eventually, my MP will send me some crap letter about the terrorist threat and how it is in everyone's interests to shop their neighbour to the authorities, for the good of the country. He's done it several times before.

I believe there was a similar system in place in Germany during the mid 1930s.

[andybarton]

Steve

You're a dodgy bloke. As is Pete, and Bill, and Keith and...

I know where you all live...

Hell in a hand-cart.

[earleygallery]

I think we should all send similar letters/e mails, post them all here and at least its a dossier that we can print/carry in the seemingly very likely event that we are stopped when out photographing.

I'm getting ready for an early start in the morning but will compose something on Monday. I'm also very tempted to take a copy of the poster into a police station and ask for advice. Of course if you persist you then fact the risk of being arrested for wasting their time. What WILL they do if we have a London meet, to be vigilantes and report anyone with a camera/cameraphone? It is almost worth doing.....any takers?

[bill]

Originally Posted by andybarton

Who's up for a photography stroll around SW1 later in the summer?

Absolutely.

Regards,

Bill

[bill]

Serious point.

Why don't we have a set of cards printed? Leica Forum ones, that is. Nice red dot, web address, name, and a simple strapline such as:

"I am exercising my right to take a photo"

Regards,

Bill